Many solutions to provide Missed Call Alerts (MCAs) to wireless phones are known in the art. These solutions share a common approach. Namely, when a network element determines that a call terminating at a mobile phone is “missed”, the caller identification (caller ID) of the caller is sent to a Short Message Service Center (SMSC). The SMSC delivers an MCA as an SMS alert to that mobile subscriber's handset. “Missed” means that either the mobile subscriber handset is off or the mobile subscriber handset is busy, not answering or out of coverage. There may be further qualifications to a “missed” call, for example—a call attempt may qualify as “missed” only if the caller has not left a voicemail to the called mobile subscriber.
If the caller is also a mobile subscriber, there are also solutions that alert the caller via SMS if the original called party is available (in coverage, not busy, or powered on) again. The mobile caller can be restricted to the same mobile network or may be calling from any other mobile or fixed-line network depending on whether they support SMS interworking with the called network.
In other known solutions, call forwarding is normally available for missed calls from a fixed-line phone to a mobile phone. In prior art call forwarding from fixed-line phones to mobile phones, missed calls at the fixed-line phone are forwarded to a mobile phone. In such cases, the mobile phone user gets an incoming call if the fixed-line phone misses a call. This may not always be desirable to the user. The user may desire to receive only a notification or alert that a call has been missed at the fixed-line, without receiving the call on the mobile phone. Further, if the mobile phone misses the call too, the missed call alert received by the mobile phone is no different from the missed call alert it would receive if it were to miss a call that was originally routed for the mobile phone.
Despite these solutions for wireless mobile subscribers, there is no solution present today for fixed-line missed call alerts. That is, none of the state of the art solutions alerts a mobile subscriber when he misses a call to his fixed-line phone. There is a need in the art for a method to alert a mobile subscriber (or another subscriber whose telecommunications equipment is capable of displaying or conveying an alert message) when he has missed a call to his fixed phone line, or a telecommunications address other than his mobile handset.
Further, the missed call alerting solutions known in the art provide an alert only to the device that misses the call. However, when a user misses a call on a device, it is likely that the user will be unable to receive an alert of the missed call on the same device soon thereafter. Thus, there is a time lag between the time when a call is missed, and when the user gets alerted of the same. On the other hand, it is sometimes likely that a user who has missed a call on one device may be immediately available on another device.
Thus, there is a need for a solution that provides alerts to the user of a device about a call missed on that device in one network by using an alert sent through another device in another or same network.